Music: Queen Mary in Virginia

Norfolk, home of the world's largest naval base, may have launched a
thousand ships, but it has never christened much, in the way of the
arts. The city (pop. 330,000) lacks the colonial quaintness of nearby
Williamsburg, the antebellum allure of Savannah or Charleston's
successful new Spoleto Festival. But in 1975, Norfolk acquired some
culture: the Virginia Opera Association. The founders were a group of
wealthy, energetic women who took over the old 1,800-seat Center
Theater, a concrete WPA-era pile blessed only with good acoustics. They
pushed ticket sales hard and put on La Boheme. What's...